Monday, August 09, 2010

The Amazing Story Of The Teamwork Celebrity Sighting

Chan and I were eating brunchfast Sunday morning, and who walks past us on the sidewalk, strolling down York Avenue in a red dress, but Amalie Benjamin. So that was pretty cool, but we had an even more interesting celeb-sight the day before.

We were walking up Lafayette Street, in the middle of Summer Streets, which is when they close off a long stretch of roads in Manhattan to cars, so you can walk or bike right on them.

This was part of our "length of Manhattan" walk, so I was stopping to take pics. Which meant Chan would sometimes just walk ahead of me and then I'd catch up after I got my shot. At one point, I was taking a picture of a billboard with a giant bottle on it, trying to get a biker in the foreground going past it. I got my shot, and ran to catch up with Chan.

Several minutes later, Chan says to me, "I saw Naomi Watts on her bike." Uh...Chan? You saw a celeb and you've just been keeping it to yourself? Classic Chan. After prying a little more, I got out of him that what he'd really seen was her husband, and some blond hair which he assumed belonged to Watts. I'm asking him who the hubby is, and he's saying what sounds like "D.F. Something." After asking which movies this guy has been in, I'm still stumped--until Chan says, "Did you go to that Shakespeare thing that time?" Knowing he meant Shakespeare in the Park a few years ago,* I said yes, and he said, "This guy was MacBeth." That's when I knew he meant Liev Schreiber.

Okay, now the next question: Chan, do you think there's any chance I took their picture without knowing it? He gave an adamant NO. But all I knew was that I was shooting, and they went by. So there was a chance, I thought.

However, the only shots I was getting at that moment were facing toward the side of the street at the billboard. Unless Naomi Watts was flying past me at the exact moment I was shooting the sign, I'd have no record of Chan's supposed sighting of her or Schreiber.

Got home Sunday afternoon, and took a look at my shots. And I saw this:

Holy shit! There she is! At least it looked a hell of a lot like her--so I did a news search for her, and this came up, featuring the below pic, showing Naomi, with kid, and same exact outfit:

So it's definitely her. Talk about teamwork: Chan sees Schreiber, assumes the blonde with him is his wife, Watts, tells me (very late), I remember where I was when they went by, check my pics from that spot, and see Watts. So a celebrity goes by me, I photograph her without knowing it's her, am told she went by me, and it turns out she's in the pic. That counts!

* I read the post I linked from '06 AFTER I wrote this one. Funny that in that post, like this one, I used a fake dual-meal combo word, and also used the term "classic Chan" in both.

Didn't have the camera at brunch-eakfast. I at least could have said Hi or something, but Chan made the call to not eat outside. So we were in that spot where you're at the window, but there are still the outdoor tables between you and pedestrians. So she walked "right by," but with all that in between I couldn't say anything. I'm not too upset about not getting a pic since I see her at Fenway a lot.

But I was surprised to see anyone from the Sox entourage way up at 91st and York. Woulda been a great Sox-stalking day actually--Sunday night game. But...been there, done that.